The Rot Grows On BETTER VERSION
by ProxyoftheMuse
Summary: Not long after the events of Epic, things seem to be normal. The people of Moonhaven live under the rule of their new queen, MK keeps in touch with her new friends and Mandrake is gone for good. That is until the Boggans attack to avenge their fallen leader while having a new one in his place who, much to their dismay, is the last link to Mandrake. I don't own Epic, nor will I.


**Hello people! I know you guys haven't heard from me for almost a year and might have gotten worried about me so I would just like to start off with these words:**

**I'M NOT DEAD! YAY! :D Senior year has been really stressful for me as it is. I was just so caught up with other things such as SAT scores, after school clubs, classes, and more than once I came down with a nasty case of senioritis and fell behind so I had to make up my work. On the plus side, I got accepted to my top colleges! ** **I will be back but I am making a few changes: ** **I know I haven't updated Unity in a year, but I'm putting it on hold. I don't know, I'm just not exactly feeling the urge to keep going on with it at the moment. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I just got so excited over that story I kept getting one new idea after another for it. Unfortunately those ideas just piled up on top of each other that the story just began to lose it's touch. I'm not saying that I am completely giving up on it, but until I develop a plot that's more organized, I will not be continuing "Unity". ** **As for my other Ice Age fan fictions, I'm thinking about rewriting "The Wrath of Vengeance" and "Love Through Hate". It's not that I hate the stories but after the two to three years since I posted them, I've been developing my own sense of writing over the years and I'm starting to find them a little rushed and cliche. Now those of you who still love reading the originals, don't worry, I will not be taking them down, I'll merely post another one and my archive will have two versions of them.** **I can't make any specific promise as to when I'll upload or update. I know I had a strict schedule with that "Upload on weekends" and I tried my best to stick to that, but it just became so stressful for me I completely forgot about it. I will not guarantee any weekly updates, I can only say that I will update as soon as I have the time. I currently have my spring break so I will try to get as much done as possible. **

**And as usual, my imaginary voice cast for my OC's**

**Rhodis: Lena Headey**

**Strych: Jim Parsons(pronounced like "strict" without the t at the end)**

**Fane: Eric Bana**

**Scott: Bradley Cooper**

**Okay, you're all probably falling asleep from the author's note so here we go, I hope you guys like it: **

Anger. That was all they were able to feel. For a Boggan, there was no room for sadness, fear, empathy, _love_. While those were not foreign concepts, especially in a time of a fallen brother, they were not used, as they were signs of weakness. They would take their sorrow out with fights, furious screeches and plots of revenge, and this time was no exception.

They were so close. Mandrake, their vicious and ever so malevolent king had everything well in hand. Retrieve a pod, find an heir and the life of the forest was in their hands. Unfortunately, it was in the hands of those life bringers, so retrieving the pod would be a difficult task, and no effort was spared to do so. The Boggans had everything well in hand, they blended in well with the surroundings, no creature of the forest was able to suspect it. Unfortunately the commanding officer Ronan foiled it. One shot of his arrow and the camouflage was exposed. At that instant, the Boggans had to act to retrieve the pod. As they terrorized the fellow villagers, Mandrake and his son Dagda went after the queen and her pod. Just as things seemed to perfectly piece together, it shattered once again because of Ronan. Once again he shot his arrow, this time, he aimed at Dagda. Although Mandrake successfully killed the queen, he did not go after the pod. The Leafman's arrow was killing his son, and there was no way he was going to leave him to die a painful death.

As if things could not have gotten any worse, they were once again thwarted, this time by the stomper girl and her father. They had lost another battle, this time losing their king at the process when he was sucked and imprisoned in that tree stump. Naturally, having no leader to control them, the Boggans ran amuck; yelling, cursing, beating each other to their heart's content, the only way that they knew to mourn the death of someone. Little did they know, that mourning will now come to an end.

"Silence!" bellowed a female voice. The Boggans stopped what they were doing to look for the source of the voice. To their shock and surprise, they found it, or rather _her_ at the source of the door. Behind her, a buzzing mosquito flew. Although the crowd could not make out the stranger's physical form, which was covered by a coat made of a dead skunk, they recognized her voice and once they did, they immediately expressed their distaste of the woman.

"Well, well, well, Look who came crawling back after all these years." sneered one. "Never thought you had the nerve to return after that little _episode_ you've experienced."

But the woman would have none of his disses. Before that Boggan could react, she grabbed him by the neck and pinned him at the wall. "Do you think me to be so weak-willed that one little spat would make me dwell in the past? Even if I was smothered underneath a field of freshly grown wildflowers, I would not let that stop me from gaining full power.

"I would advise you not to take that tone with your new queen." the little mosquito buzzed to the Boggan. "Those who do will be punished severely once she passes the new laws."

"Queen?" a hulking Boggan appeared to face the woman. "You have no rights here." he smirked tauntingly. You have been banished from ever setting foot in this ever again and you dare have the audacity to come in and seize the throne of our Lord?!"

After finishing his sentence, the Boggan looked down at the woman menacingly. Judging by her petite size, one would think she would run away from the challenge, but far from it. The threatening look in the monster's eyes nor his bulky figure did not faze her. Before he could even make his move on her, the woman grabbed him by his lumbering arm and threw him across the room. Although that left his muscles to stiff to move them, he was lucky. With the force she used in that throw, it was a miracle that he had not fallen out of the rotting tree trunk or broken any bones for that matter.

Despite his physical condition, the hulking Boggan would not be silenced.

"Only a chosen heir has the right to the throne!" he snapped in a cocky manner.

"And who else do you see around you?!" snapped the woman. His son died before his potential could be discovered, he had no other children and there is not a single relative of his alive to take his place!

"You're not the rightful ruler!" a bony Boggan cried out. "The pod was supposed to choose the next heir!"

"And we would have had one if it weren't for the Leafmen!" his equally skinny friend agreed with him.

"Oh that blasted pod!" the woman gritted through her teeth. "I always thought it was a foolish tradition, letting a plant decide our future when we are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves."

"This is not the Boggan way!" the entire crowd protested.

"Are you willing to live in complete anarchy because of that? Face it, I am Mandrake's last link and like it or not, _I _rule you now!" to emphasize her point, she walked over to the Boggan she had defeated in combat. To emphasize her point, struck the staff she was holding in his heart, making him let out a painful scream before he evaporated into pure nothingness, leaving the crowd in shock, chattering in fear.

"Now, any questions?"

**You will find out slightly more about the woman and her little sidekick in the next chapter and then I'll reveal her backstory in the chapter after. **

**And yes, the son's name was Dagda. If you don't believe me, check the closing credits of the movie. **


End file.
